Shame on Echo for making such a setup. Even my homeowner husqvarna has a bearing supported cam with rods actuating the blades.

A lot of hedge trimmers use wheel bearing grease (like slick 50 with teflon) but I prefer Alvania EP00 (semi-liquid) because it adds less drag and slowly creeps in between the blades, I do have to apply it every month.

It seems Obama is everywhere nowadays, even on a piece of Austin newspaper in a forum pic.

Yeah you have to keep gear cases lubed and not just on hedge trimmers but also most stick type tools such as edgers and string trimmers... Maybe Echo's won't stand a different type of grease but the big secret in my case is to never mix grease types and to lube it up once a year or so by removing the screw in the gear case that was put there for this purpose and to inject the grease carefully so you don't blow a seal... Now you can use the special 10 dollars for 5 ounces that's good for 1 application grease or do like I do and remove the tip from a grease gun so that it screws in to the hole, again careful squeezing that grease in there, last but not least the blades have to be replaced every so many years anyhow and I have never had the cam gears wear out, then again I have a Stihl.

seems you guys have discovered that echo hedge trimmers are poorly built. no suprize to me

Well I don't have anything to compare to.....certainly not going to carry around a stihl just due to weight so stopped buying those after one. We do have a shindawa that is pretty nice and it has different configuration on drive.